001board business meeting of the new school year um Mr jinsky roll call please here here here here thank you please join us in the Pledge of Allegiance IED Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the thank you if there are any audience members that would like to go to the podium and speak you're welcome to just going to practice a little wait time there is not I'd like to um him M Dr s for a brief statement prior to moving to our consent calendar thank you madam chair uh it's with a heavy heart that I share that late last night we learned of the sudden passing of the chure high school student due to our confidentiality laws and out of pers for the family's privacy we are unable to release
002this child's name at this time we want to remind everyone how important it is for students to speak with an adult if they have any concerns or questions as a school system we want to make sure we're supporting all of our students and our community we encourage our students to talk to a parent school counselor or to call 211 uh for mental health or grief support in partnership with wellmore Behavioral Health and chesher Human Services we offered counseling services at chesher high school today and people may also uh those Services excuse me will be also be available tomorrow uh from 9 to 3:00 in the high school library uh we would ask that if you have any questions or have uh need to talk to a counselor uh for any other reason you can certainly
003reach out to uh in addition to those resources your local schools and the counselors in those buildings uh and we provide additional resources at this point I'd ask that you please join me in a moment of silence for the family thank you thank you Dr Solen next item on the agenda is the consent calendar um item a is approval statement on class size policy in in accordance with the agreement between the chesher Board of Education and the Education Association of chesher article 23 the Board of Education hereby publishes and provides to the association its policy relating to class size that the board shall endeav to maintain class sizes consistent with proven educational practices which require that various learning situations May alter the number of students per class the board through its committees shall study and
004make recommendations concerning personnel and space requir based on all factors affecting class size Item B approval of Ace AC's annual membership agreement area corporate educational um Services which is ases is a regional Educational Service Center pursuant to section 10- 66a of the Connecticut General statutes which acts as a voluntary Association of member Boards of Education establishing a Cooperative arrangement to provide services programs and activities for the education of children each year participating Boards of Education must renew their participation Aces by a carrying out its responsibilities as described in the membership agreement B paying an assessment fee of $250 and C appointing Board of Education members to serve as representative and Alternate to the Asus governing board so that that is Mr paragini that the treasure Board of Education agrees to the participate for the 2024
0052 school year in area corporative Educational Services as set forth in the AC's annual membership agreement and appoints a representative and Alternate to the aces governing board so with those two explanation of consent items I do need a motion Dr herrian second Mr White we're call for a vote all those in favor of approving the motion amemory sorry just want to make sure you heard me um it's unanimous thank you uh next item are the committee reports I'm going to pass it over to amarie for curriculum thank you madam chair um based on our last curriculum meeting the textbook ways of the World by publisher Bedford Freeman in worth was presented and reviewed by the curriculum committee and follow and had a public viewing period the chesher we um the curriculum committee recommends that the
006chesher Board of Education approve the purchase of ways of the world is recommended by the curriculum committee um the motion is on on the table um is there a second and uh haran discussion thank you what course is it and what's changing with the book for the course this is the AP World History course which is a new course that will be on the docket next year for students um it was presented to the curriculum committee by the social cities Department here Tim Galvin he along with Mr Vicario and Miss Griffith had looked at several books and decided that this one was the the best option was also recommended by the college board so there are approximately 30 books that will be ordered for just under $4,000 thank you I so I I Googled it
007on Amazon I I didn't know what course it was but it said that I just want to comport these two things it's world history and what I was reading on Amazon said the current edition kind of starts in the year 1200 ad is that what it is I just want you said the College Board is the yes I don't remember if that was a cover or not Y is it the College Board is the one that does the AP exams yes it it is and it looks like it starts since um let's see I can tell you that it starts diversity and interaction in the world 1200 100 to 1450 is the first period that they look at in history yeah no it's interesting to me because just from having traveled a little bit the
008oldest town in the US that's been lived in continuously is I believe it's t New Mexico which started around 1,200 ad interesting different from 1620 or 1609 or 1565 with St Augustine so anyway thank you for that sure any other comments Dr herrian yeah can you remind me because I was at that meeting and I've heard a lot about it is it also an ECA course or early college it's not an ECE course just AP it's just AP any other questions comments okay with that um call for a vote to approve the motion that is currently on the table all in favor unanimous thank you next committee Dr herrian Finance discussion sure we've been would you like to start us off please I would love to good evening members of the board welcome back to
0092024 25 school year the board members do have the finance report it is as of July 31st it's our first month in the fiscal year um so I'm just going to give a a brief recap the approved budget for this year is 89 m542 609 um during the first month of the year we've been come numbered or expended 17.7 million that's only 19.8% but what's not reflected here and won't be reflected until we get into October is the encumbrances that we do for payroll uh and for transportation which are our two largest account categories um and once we get to October we'll have a a much better sense of um the full Financial picture for the year there are no variants concern conerns to report at this time we're only 30 days in however as
010the board knows what we do uh when we enter the new school year is we always put an expenditure cap for non-payroll accounts that is set at 50% I'm I've advised the administrators the um various department managers you know for School District Operations that we are going to keep that 50% cap through December just as a cautionary note um and when I get to the medical benefits report you'll understand why a little bit better but we're going to keep the 50% cap um I did note on in this month's uh first report which I'll keep on our report monthly we were able to lock our heating oil our transportation diesel fuel transportation gasoline um for this fiscal year which is just a little bit below where we budgeted which is good you know we we
011locked when oil was around $75 a barrel it's been you know vacillating up and down it was around $73 a barrel today so we did pretty well with the price locks the other update is our electricity Supply is locked at um 10.35 cents per kilowatt hour that's down from last year where you know we had a shortterm rate of 11.7 cents per kilowatt hour that rate of 10.35 is good till October of 2026 we haven't locked propane yet although we did get our first delivery for the kitchen cooking uh and the price remained at the same prices last year which was 229 a gallon we will likely lock propane we probably will not lock natural gas we haven't in several years and it's worked just fine for us so that is the um long short
012of the finance report this month I'm going to just jump into medical benefits and we can come back to finance if there are questions so included in the board's package is the medical benefits update again this is the first month in uh the the fiscal year the this year's budget I'll just recap there we budgeted just under $1.2 million per month for claims that is based on the Actuarial um estimates that we received from from uh USI our benefits broker and siga um so the first month's claims unfortunately exceeded the 1.18 million expected at 1.56 million so what essentially happened is we decreased our Reserve balance by $393,000 um that's a pretty high claim month for the last two years our July claims have been about $1.1 million um I did look to see are
013are there some large claims and the answer is that there are several large claims that are included these um are continuing claims people that you know have either chemo or immunotherapy treatment that's ongoing and those tend to end um but we're in in a cycle where those are continuing claims from the June 30th period um as of right now the Reserve balance is 1. 1826 million so we you know we have 1.54 months of claims of course we'll continue to monitor you know I I do expect that as we get into September October claims should settle down you know we still are are looking to average the 1.18 million as the year progresses but it is uh not a claim month that any of us are happy about but we'll not much we could do
014about it other than continue to monitor so that takes me back to why we're going to keep that 50% cap on in the event that we um you know continue to have high claim months and we exhaust our reserve the first place we have to go to our operating budget to make sure we could make up the deficiency we always have the option you know to request additional funding but we haven't done that in the past we haven't needed to and I'm hoping that we can continue that Trend this year and hope that claims get better that concludes the Finance report for this month thank you Mr Mar you're welcome great next item is the Personnel we may have a question there is a question sorry Mr gripple I didn't see thank you um two
015questions um firstly so the claims the that we saw will uh any of them qualify for the stop loss well not yet the the highest claims that I saw were $70,000 and the clock resets as of July 1 so we have to hit 175,000 before we receive stop-loss reimbursement it's likely that we will have claims that hit the stoploss layer not for several months though and and typically the second half of the year so starting January through June is when we start to see that those claims are hitting that 175 always a double-edged sword when we have high stoploss reimbursement that means that we're going to pay the price in the next year's renewal so we always hope for low claims and well below the threshold but we'll we'll as I said continue to work
016through it um and secondly um for our electric bill um is our school system subject to that fee that everyone keeps talking about commercial Works differently and I can't tell you that um and I I'd have to look at the the last couple of months bills to see if our rate for the transmission has changed I I and I'm looking at Mr White because he usually knows before I do if there's been a a rate change on the transmission side so I think Adam's talking about public benefit charge I think which would be different from the transmission yeah do we I'm not sure I mean I could look it up but I'm not sure do we get the public benefit charge on school schools have a different rate than residential than commercial it's actually School
017rates I'll check I'm not sure yeah and I could I could certainly email the board members but we'll take a look be interesting to know okay Mr M I just have a question kind of similar to finance with the situation that um occurred with the roof at yes was there an impact to us financially not to us but certainly to the roofing company there will be because what what essentially happened really briefly is the roof that was um being replaced they had added the roof membrane it was installed properly what wasn't installed properly are the caps for the roof drains that would divert the water off the membrane down the roof drain and into storm water management obviously they weren't expecting the crazy torrential range that we received um so we are not unhook financially
018that will be covered by them you know it was you know certainly a major inconvenience but I will tell you that you know first of all the alarm company did report motion and think about how much water has to be coming into the building to set up em motion alarm the answer is a lot um and then the police responded our on call custodian responded so we were in there pretty quickly not much we could do other than try and catch the water in large containers um and the um director of facilities Richard cette you know had a call in for all hands on deck so most of our maintenance staff was in the building on Sunday night you know vacuuming up the water and getting it out of the building after the rain did
019stop also Mr cette had the roofing company come back and go on the roof about an hour after we got the call to secure those roof drains so that the subsequent rain event which we did have a large rain event a couple of days later we had no additional water so it will be all put back together you know by Monday it's looking good already so I know that's a long- winded answer but I figured let me just tell you what happened thank you any other questions Mr Gribble uh yeah just one more so are you saying that the uh we'll call it up Ren repairs or whatever renovation was completed and it failed or it was not complet no the work was not completed okay and and the work will be fully completed this
020weekend they still had some more so they just didn't have a uh protection enough against a freak downpour of what four or five inches or whatever we got right again they weren't counting on a monsoon and they should have they should have secured those roof drain caps before they left on Friday sure they won't make that mistake again thank you Mr White thank you um yes so I just looked it up um to answer Adam's question as of July 1st the rate that most of us us paying our homes rate one uh was 4 cents per kilowatt hour for the public benefit charge and for schools and our schools as I recall we do not use one rate but I believe we probably for most of our schools we we use one rate just there's
021a couple that we do use for other reasons and that is rate 40 I believe and that's two cents per kilowatt hour so we're paying half of what most homeowners are paying two cents versus forense the schools being we thank you thanks M Tim um next committee is uh personnel and I'm gonna pass it to Dr Solen um because we have an appointment of the assistant chief operating officer thank you madam chair um because this person will be reporting directly to Mr massian I've invited him to introduce our appointee Vin thank you it is with great pleasure that we present to the board of ed the appointment of our assistant chief operating officer miss Emily Taylor Emily you can raise your hand that's Emily Taylor everyone Emily I'll give you a little background here she
022Emily was selected from a pool of 30 candidates and she endured a pretty grueling multi-round interview process which included members of our Board of Education our administrative team and our operations leadership team throughout the process Emily was personable she was very thoughtful in her responses she was enthusiastic about the position hope she remains that way and professional in her interactions with everyone U and she ultimately proved to us um unanimously that she is the right fit for this new position Emily has more than 12 years of experience serving in various School operations leadership roles which we thought was important and she's currently serving as a cheap operating Chief Operating Officer at Kip Academy where she's responsible for managing the operations of five charter schools in the Boston area and those schools serve more than 2100
023K through 12 students operating budget of about $50 million per year she began her career as a math teacher which is a good skill to have in this job at West Jefferson High School in Louisiana then moved into the role of school operations maner manager for renew Charter management also in Louisiana and then she ultimately relocated to the Boston area and joined Kip Academy as the Director of school operations and she's been successfully employed at Kip for the last 10 years she earned her BS in Psychology criminology and criminal justice from the University of Maryland and she noted it was Suma Kum L impressive and she went on to earn an MBA from Bentley University we're pleased to share with the board that Emily has very strong educ educational roots that preceded her College Success
024because she is a former chesher resident and a proud graduate of chesa high school it's pretty good right yeah so Emily and her family recently moved from Massachusetts to the Glastonberry area she told us more than once she's very excited to start her career with the chesher public schools on October 9th as our new assistant coo assuming the board approves the appointment of course and we're equally excited about her joining the School District Operations and the treasure Public Schools team thank you thank you Mr masana um if possible can somebody please read the motion to approve the appointment Mr White you that the chesher Board of Education appoints Emily Taylor to the position of assistant chief operating officer further the board authorizes the superintendent to enter into an agreement with Miss Taylor for her employment
025as the assistant chief operating officer second miss calling in discussion Mr gripple I see you thank you well firstly uh welcome back to chesher um several of us here uh did graduate from chesher high school as well right oh Mark sorry I forgot about sorry are you all in the same class no no um and I also uh graduated uh Finance from Bentley so go Falcons uh class of 96 though I'm guessing you're more in the 2000s I'm assuming okay you got to go to that cool new Finance school that they built a little after right down well half of it was in so oh oh wow okay okay oh wow all right yeah well go f Falcons um so anyway uh welcome I'm sorry I couldn't attend your um your your last your final
026interview last week but um sounds like you did great so welcome to the team and uh you know free up your time for Jan January so spreadsheets Dr her again hi I just want to welcome you aboard and um and to Vinnie and Jeff you know thanks for getting this succession planning uh lined up for for us for the future um it's wonderful to have somebody so well qualified coming coming up the ranks so I look forward to working with you in the future any other comments questions discussion um I just want to say uh I appreciate that you went through this very rigorous process as Vinnie said um so um I also you know thank you for Mr eki and I kind of asked use some Off Script questions um and you know the
027answers made me personally as a parent in the community feel comfortable um that a you are connected to the community you have an awareness that our community is growing in diversity um and these things matter in the finance world as much so that um I'm I'm happy you're here and I'm kind of jealous because you have the Godfather of Finance to learn from so Vinnie Godfather my thank you for that title that's a new one for me Michael Colon come on right so he's gonna be talking about that for oh man I'll retract I'll retract that comment Carol you can scratch it I will I'm going to update my business card with that one are you kidding but welcome board we're happy to have you here for sure any other comments All right so with
028that um all those in favor of approving the appointment of Miss Emily Taylor h i it is unanimous great yay would you like to make a comment yourself well like I'm very excited to come back to ches Great perfect great can you hear me oh this is nice um well I'm very excited to rejoin the chesher public schools as an adult I have it was a very intense interview process but I feel like I got to know a lot of people that work for the school district and I'm very excited to work with such like a a likable hardworking group of individuals and um you do you all are doing something really special here and I'm I'm really G to be I'm proud to be a part of that now so thank you thank you
029just one thing put that on so when you you don't need to go back to the microphone just a suggestion that uh taking over or working with vin on this you're probably going to be doing Outreach to the community as my guess some public meetings you might want to go back to your yearbook and remember all those names because you're going to probably know some people at those meetings for the elementary schools yeah great next uh committee item is planning Mr eki you guys had a meeting on July 17th which I was not present for I apologize I was in Grace and I was late um I'm GNA kick this again over to Vin and he's going to talk all about the progress at Highland School okay thank you again I will I will make
030this brief there was a planning uh committee meeting held on July 17th and at the time the discussion and I will give an update after I'm done with the update from the meeting but on the date of the meeting we provided an update on the status of the Highland portable classrooms project and if I know the board is aware of that the reason that we needed to undertake this project to add two module classrooms at Highland Elementary School is because the enrollment is not only growing but expected to continue to grow to a point where the capacity will be really really tight in that school so we needed to have some way to increase capacity and the use of modular classrooms although it's you know it's not the it's not the best solution um it
031is for us at this time because we can't add to the building um so on the date of the meeting I I do want to point out and it's in the minutes that we had 890 students enrolled at Highland Elementary but we knew that um because it was July we didn't have full enrollment from all the parents um so as of today the 890 is 9915 students so it not surprising you know we did end the school year at 8 99 so we expected it to increase um the one good piece of news is that I don't I I believe we will have one kindergarten classroom that won't be used that was projected to be used so that gives us a little bit of wiggle room uh on the date of the meeting what I
032had reported to the planning committee members is that we had issued an initial RFP to purchase the portable classrooms back in February and we awarded the actual purchase and delivery of the Portables um back in March Planning and Zoning approved the project in on May 13 we had construction design and bid set drawings completed by anazi on June 11th we then issued a second request for proposals to do the site electrical plumbing and construction work uh that was issued on June 18th J on July 10th we opened uh the four proposals that were received you know retriever group nozle Builders Beacon electric and Nadler module all submitted initial proposals we screened those proposals we did a scope review with our architect Mr clette our director of facilities and myself you know we were very thorough
033in that process and we ultimately awarded um to Beacon electric now that's not in the minutes I'm giving you just some further update um the way that we will fund this project is a combination of capital funds that were approved for this and money from our operating budget funds um I explained that day to the planning committee that the planning committee didn't had made all the approvals I needed to make previously so there was no action required by the planning committee so no action was taken that evening the um other item that we updated and discussed was the there was a call that I have received from Melissa Fuller over at eversource she's responsible for natural gas delivery you know in this area and she knows that you know we had asked in the past
034can we get natural gas too little we never did it previously because it was cost prohibitive and the bottom line is it's still cost prohibitive we would have to pull the gas line about a mile we did install two new um boilers at at D little just a couple of years ago they run on oil if we spent a million dollars to run a natural gas line we would not recoup that million dollars for a couple of decades at a minimum so it doesn't make economic sense to do it um and it still is a fossil fuel so we didn't think there was any point in in you know taking this any further but that was one of the updates that was provided at that meeting uh and the meeting you know did end started
035at 6:35 ended at 7:15 I I'll just add a little bit in more information so we did award to uh Beacon electric after the scope review we made some adjustments they they lowered the proposal price a little bit further we um have had several meetings with Beacon electric you know we're at the stage where they have to you know do submittals to the architect that we also review for the electrical the foundation work um we're going to install perimeter fencing obviously we will have not only staff but students in school starting next week so the perimeter where the construction work will begin will be fenced off you know that will happen next week the site work will begin next week the site work portion um the installation of electrical that should be done by mid-september
036so this is not a long inconvenience period for the school you know obviously principal Jeffrey and staff are aware that we will have an active construction site during the day we will not be bringing construction vehicles in in the morning or when the students are being dismissed you the contractor is well aware of that we've worked with this contractor before he's proven to be highly responsible he did the he's actually just finished the dot fire alarm work which went great and that was done after hours so we have everything aligned we should have the Portables ready for occupancy around Thanksgiving you know if we get a break and we finish a little earlier we can occupy earlier but we will be able to use the Portables the second half of this school year year and
037next year going back to enrollment the one thing we haven't seen a lot of yet which I'm pretty sure will be coming is new students coming in from the new housing as it opens up whether it's the tow houses you know on Sodom and way which is part of the North End development or the apartments that are part of that same development as well as some of the other housing that's been brought online because is our biggest capture area for elementary students we would expect the bulk of the students you know to go to Highland um and I will say that you know that we are diverting students into Chapman from Sodom and way so that shouldn't affect Highland but we'll continue to Monitor and and work through the process we do have a plan
038B but I don't think we need to worry about Plan B because you know we were able to get this project scoped and awarded and work is about to begin very soon that's the update for planning thank you Dr herrian yes so um one question I have and just speaking pretty generally um are we really straining our Elementary School Highland it sounds it sounds like it's bursting at the seams really and I I also just want to give a big shout out to Mr Jeff um Elementary principal uh of the of the state right Connecticut um I it gives me such relief to know that he is in in that school uh working for us because I I just think this is an enormous responsibility that he's carrying for this big school that's birthing at
039the scene so big shout out to Scott yeah and I know if Scott were here he would um you know share that it's certainly uh he leads that group but there are a lot of people that are making extraordinary contributions and accommodations to make this work we had a lot of um you know learning support teachers out in hallways trying to do work in closets we we're putting people in a lot of different positions that unfortunately are a function of the incredible enrollment we have there um and so I know he would want to acknowledge those folks as well but certainly Scott's been you know very very supportive and helpful in this process yes thanks for bringing that up I didn't I don't mean to slight no I know and that's why I know Scott
040would immediately say there's a lot of other people that deserve recognition thank you Scott we're channeling you tonight any other comments questions question Miss cry and then Mr G so I'm I'm I just want to make sure I heard this correctly that there's one less kindergarten one less kindergarten grave okay so do we think that that is directly related to the change in the age it could be yeah because we do have two transitional kindergartens we did anticipate a reduction in kindergarten enrollment and if you recall we knew that um maybe you've seen on the news was it uh Tuesday night or something that um you know we anticipated the reduction we didn't want to cut good teachers knowing that that'll probably level out we wanted to make we wanted to alleviate some of the
041burden that our local um daycare providers wouldn't be able to manage we wanted to be able to support families so we're offering this transitional K program at $5,500 a year we're not making a profit on it we're covering costs and so um yeah we did anticipate that reduction in K but we've added the two transitionals at at uh Darcy there are those I believe it's six sections of kindergarten so it's not small yeah yeah not small yeah Mr gripple and then Mr White um so just for reference so we're at 9 clim 9915 in climbing but when the new schools open and we engage in redistricting the target number is 7 725 Highland yeah so it it certainly will go down are we still on track for that so you know one of the things
042that we're going to have to explore throughout the course of this year oh no is just an updated enrollment study because who doesn't like that um you know I we are at about the projections the SL SLR initially uh provided years ago um we do have NASDAQ produ projections as well that are more or less grounded in birth rate um but I we Vin and I have discussed that it might be appropriate to go out one more time and just get a especially before as we're starting to put shovels in the ground in our buildings and if you remember we did design for uh buildout if necessary uh now would be a good time to know that before we do start building so you know probably over the course of this year we're going to
043want to pursue that right thank you I think this is probably a question for you VIN probably for planning as a planning committee item kindergarten I got the email as an elementary school parent about Walkers and busers what is the radius for kindergarteners now well we it's half a mile but the board um policy committee had their second reading to move it to a mile oh so we're not done with that yet got it yeah there's one okay yeah one more and that's the question then I was thinking we were done with it so thank you yeah I I did explain um when we met at the last policy committee that you know we're the one mile is the maximum doesn't mean we're going to put every student at one mile you know we are
044pretty sensitive it's rare that we actually hit the one mile or the 1.5 mile marker for DOD and the high school you know which is permitted on the board policy the idea is just to align kindergarten with first grade the reason kindergarten was a half a mile was we had Darcy which was a kindergarten Center so without many side walks either so right right okay so there's there is a third reading that will should occur at the next business meeting got it so it's in process okay thank you you're welcome anybody and just for those at home clarification what classes are going into the port Portables grade levels well this may change because you know we're doing it at midy year y when we had last talked to Scott he was thinking of one fourth
045grade class and one of the um I believe the T PT perhaps but you know that may change so just take it as a tentative yeah it's it's and I think optimally we would put grade level classes in there unfortunately given the fact that construction is happening mid year and it's incredibly difficult to move full grade classes um it might be some combination of a full grade class in service providers but uh we're trying to avoid service providers there if we can U but Scott's trying to work through that but then the subsequent year yeah we probably grade level classes yeah like yeah upper um it depends on how many sections of each level we have and where we're locating them um but that's in that section of the building it tends to be around
046fourth grade um that are out there I mean obviously you know the best case scenario would be to put smaller students but not kindergarten you know right because they take up a little less space than a take forever to walk to the main building yep and then um you're deferring the other updates to the 95 meeting here V I just wanted to yes the full update with pictures will be at the board of ed meeting on 95 okay but I just want to assure you that as I sit here today all our schools will be open on August 29th there are no showstoppers and a small roof would not prevent us from opening School for students thank you um any other items or stst standing committees can we let Emily go if she'd like to
047oh I apologize I know she's sitting here patiently and you're welcome to stay all right it's quite entertaining isn't it um no no other items uh next item is the approval of minutes for June 6th and June 8th uh 20th excuse me meetings if somebody could please um read the motion to approve the minutes Mr White moved that the Cheshire Board of Education approve the minutes from meetings held on June 6th and June 28th second miss cullinan any additions or Corrections that need to be made based on your review none all those in favor of approving the minutes for both June 6 and June 28th 2024 say I or unanimous thank you Mr secretary are there any correspondences to be read Madame chair I have no correspondence at this time great thank you sir next
048item is the superintendent report Dr Solen thank you Madame chair um first just to continue off the the planning uh conversation I wanted to update the board uh there's a NextGen School building committee meeting going on this evening actually and um is things start to crystallize around around when we uh will finalize all of our plans some things have changed a little bit um so I I know I sent an invitation to you but I just want to announce and and for the Public's sake uh we will have a joint meeting to review uh the North End final plans on Thursday the 12th of September at 7 o' um it's it is like it's sounds uh the final designs should be completed at that point and the board uh will vote to approve those designs
049at that meeting hopefully um on Thursday September 19th the board and the council was originally slated to Hall The Joint meeting unfortunately um we needed to cancel that meeting in favor of um uh a Norton cost estimate review um that day that the next gen School building committee will be meeting at 6 o'clock and I'll be meeting with them um to review the cost estimates for the North End or excuse me for Norton um and so unfortunately Sean will be there as well we had to uh we're going to have to reschedule the Joint Council board meeting in which we were looking to discuss things like naming and um next steps in terms of our our next phase uh so we'll try and reset that date ASAP on Thursday September 26 the week after uh
050we will have another joint meeting with the NextGen School building committee to approve the Norton plans and that'll be at 7:00 as well uh again those should be in your camp calendar uh but I wanted to make sure everybody was aware of of those important upcoming meetings and the um the little change in schedule for the 19th or at least change in what we were trying to cover that day Jeff before you move on you said the joint meetings were the 12th and the 26th yes okay so okay 7 o'clock uh for both those on the next gen School building committee um so and it like I said I I'll resend it in the calendar um just so you have it you know at the top of your uh page again um but that's those
051are some important meetings that are coming up uh we have begun construction at both locations with not Full Construction but at least site work uh there has been dramatic site work at the North End if you have the opportunity to drive by or if you follow me on Instagram um I post pictures and video pretty regularly we've also initiated some Drone footage of both sites uh that will follow through the process and you'll get a chance to see the progression over time it's already pretty like I said pretty dramatic on the North End at Norton uh we've completed cutting the road tighter to the building for emergency access so pretty soon uh the fences will go up uh in the fall to we're trying to hold off as long as we can so that play
052space is available but uh in the fall we'll put up fencing and the construction will start the work has already been done through Sharon Drive to provide uh Road access from the back of the building uh the Culver or not the Culver like the bridge crossing the concrete Bridge Crossing has been commissioned and that should be in this fall as well uh but that like I said that work is coming along and it's it's really exciting to see this work actually taking place we just another C days closer every day so uh there's that the other thing that has kept me really busy over the summer is the anxious generation book club I appreciate those of you that were able to attend and participate uh we had over uh 200 approximately 250 people sign up
053parents and and staff to read the anxious Generation by Jonathan hate and um we've had more than a 100 people participate in discussions around the book uh and you know some of the themes that have emerged from those conversations and I think the one that's most powerful to me is that after reading the book it's changed the way that I look at the world uh it's changed and I can say personally for me as well it's changed the way that I look at parenting educational leadership um how we support kids to develop to be healthy uh young people and hopefully young adults uh it it's incredibly altering and so I I would recommend the book uh one of the other themes is that in essence we tend to dramatically nature of social media and the
054adverse impact it has on our kids mental health sleep and many other things uh particularly for young women uh and on the flip side our society has become incredibly protective uh almost detrimentally or detrimentally so in the real world um and how do we provide our kids more opportunities to learn and grow uh in a safe but um opportunities for them to get out of their comfort zone and it's okay to be out of your comfort zone as a matter of fact it's great to be out of your comfort zone uh and evolve uh one of the metaphors he uses in the book is the idea that trees without adversity grow up and fall over uh they require actually wind and drought and other things in order to strengthen their roots and be able to
055rise tall and so there are a lot lot of powerful themes through the book and U you may have seen recently that the state has issued guidance around cell phone policies and it's been my position from the outset that well I think you know restricting cell phone access is great uh I kind of liken it to the idea of saying that we're going to restrict cigarette access to kids I mean of course we're going to do that during the day but is really we want to do it all the time uh is best for their health and uh it's not outlandish to make the parallel that social media is as addictive and harmful for young people as smoking is uh but we just socially haven't seen it that way yet um but the research says
056that and so we've been focused uh intently on educating our community around that fact and um are hopeful that that is the first step in community understanding and acceptance when we are much more restrictive around cell phone use um the it'd be great to be restrictive about cigarettes it's better if kids don't buy them and so you know that's where we are with cell phones uh for kids and that's a lot of the work that we've been doing and I look forward to continuing our book meetings our book opportunity discussion opport opportunities uh next week on the 27th we have two more uh number of people signed up and um eventually our policy committee will be taking a hard look at these recommendations around uh cell phones um but again you know we have laws
057in Connecticut that prohibit speeding but you know that's only a law is only part of the process a rule is only part of the process um we need to really focus on the whole picture and that's part of it so I look forward to taking up that conversation in the fall any questions for the superintendent Mr White and then Dr heran thank you um so Jeff you had mentioned uh naming schools did you mention that for the September 12th and the 26th meetings no that will be the joint meeting with the board and the Town Council that unfortunately we had to reschedule because of the uh priorities of the nextg school building committee and fing the final plans with the state but we will get that on the docket do you have a do you
058have an idea of what like month that might happen um probably October um and we'll you know I'll try and um connect I did talk to Sean about this uh we need to connect with Peter Talbot and Sam and we'll try and get a couple of dates out to the groups to make sure we can get as many people to participate as possible thank you yeah my just off the cuff maybe something like a public hearing I don't know if we could do it legally because there's so many rules around doing stuff like that but I and maybe not even in one night yeah I think it I think it merits a little bit more discussion that like policy committee is three consecutive meetings or something like that just to give the public a chance
059to share their thoughts yeah so the The Joint meeting um I think part of the plan there is to design a process oh okay yeah not not to necessarily decide on a name um uh but okay Godfather Elementary School is off the table any ideas I tried it Ben uh and beyond that as you might have be surprised the anxious generation thank you so much for encouraging me as a board member as a parent encouraging all parents to read it I read it myself it was I found it powerful and compelling um I encourage everyone in town not just parents I encourage everyone to read it it's a it's an extremely powerful statement you had mentioned the addiction that exists particularly with social media which is sort of goes hand inand with the smartphone and
060one of the pieces about that is how the social media companies my recollection from the book is basically basically they know that they're the when you get a like or a retweet or something like that dopamine goes to your brain which as I understand it is kind of addiction the definition of it and they know what they're doing and it's really problematic the story that the guy tells kind of speaks to criminality or fraud I think that has occurred within the past say 10 years or so 10 years or so and so I I just encourage people to read it it's a it's really powerful in my opinion and I encourage parents to also think long and hard about the access the kids are given because I I don't think it's a stretch what you're
061talking about with regard to cigarettes it's not the same thing because a phone call you know to your mom and dad or something like that can make total sense um but the social media and and other aspects of it the distraction of texting uh there's a whole lot of layers to the technology we have and I I certainly don't mean to say that it's all bad and there are real benefits with it I'm not sure what the benefit is with smoking and I know people enjoy it so there's that for some people um but it it it's really important that uh Society collectively uh comes to learn more about what's actually happening with this um from a number of parents with whom I've spoken this summer when it comes to uh a stricter prohibition on
062school time the feedback that I've gotten and this is not I came to the one meeting I'm not talking about just that this is talking to parents all over the place and it has been uh basically either uh supportive of it a stronger prohibition or a shrug I I just don't know what to do and and I do think the book makes a very um important argument that we whoever it is two people the book mentions 10 people sort of teaming up and saying hey we can do this we can hold the line on this with regard to either a smartphone or social media or whatever you know we can hold the line I think that's really important there is a there's a group mention in it called wait till 8 which is just encouraging
063people to hold off until 8th grade before they get a smartphone sure anybody at home could just Google that um they are growing uh their groups like that beyond the technology I'll just say um with regard to what the what the author characterized as uh play based childhood versus phone based childhood and the play-based childhood my own little experiment my eight-year-old son going to third grade this is just for parents to consider in terms of like playgrounds and stuff the way the author and some other stuff that you shared with us at the meeting Jeff it explains like playgrounds and how playgrounds are designed to be safe but it's not necessarily what kids find to be fun and this summer my son was fortunate enough to go to camp sloper where he participated in their
064fort building program for two weeks and they get to use real nails hammers real tools stuff like that a chainsaw which I can I I got confirmation he was not using the chainsaw cuz I just don't think he's forget about safety just wouldn't be able to pick it up anyway um I asked him after he did that fort building the fort building sloper Camp I asked him I said what would you what would be your ideal playground if you could build it and he said fort building plus a swing set the point being that I love the playgrounds that we have and it really does work I think for younger kids it definitely works um and it's safe and that's nice but I think the experimentation the exploration on the part of kids is also
065really important um and I just I I love it when I see my son you know walking off into the woods behind our house and I remember myself doing that and I also think about one of the stories in the book it was only a few years ago I guess it was right here in Connecticut where a mom got arrested because she let her kid go to the playground without her it wasn't a 5-year-old I don't remember how old her her son or daughter was I think it was a daughter but I don't want Society to be there my own personal opinion where parents are getting arrested if their kid is capable of doing something on their own um and I get it that there's risks out there but I agree with the story that
066you mentioned about the tree growing stronger by virtue of being being challenged earlier in life so uh that is it again I thank you for bringing that to our attention and I hope that uh the policy committee takes this up um soon and acts and I hope uh I also hope that parents do come because there are real for me I would like to do the most expansive broad ban on technology smartphones at least that we could um and by that I mean including Sports bus time everything is that practical I don't know enforcement is a real issue um but there are also very clear to me real issues beyond that I know at least one child who has diabetes and uses it so there are medical reasons for it um but I do hope
067that the policy committee takes it up uh soon and I do hope that parents come to speak about it thank you if I may just real quick with respect to the playground piece as soon as I read the book I reached out to our Architects and said we need to have a conversation about this and um Vin and the principes and I met uh couple of weeks ago um maybe a month ago now and you know she said this is so refreshing to have a conversation about Adventure play as opposed to what's going to be the quote most secure boring playground we could make to um protect from potential liability now interestingly you know the likelihood of kids getting injured is actually reportedly higher on the Bland play Cape because the kids don't use it
068the correct way and are more likely to fall and get hurt um and so we've designed things that are certainly safe um but are not your just traditional blah playscapes uh and they look really exciting and engaging and I I can't wait until you know we unveil them and you guys have a chance to look at them that what we've seen so far is really exciting Dr herri yes so on this issue um today at noon time the Connecticut Association of boards of Ed C uh had a webinar that I um sat in on listened in on and um I think all Boards of EDS across the state are now charged with taking the um Pro what is it the regulations it's not regulations the proposed um the guidance that they yeah the guidance from
069the State Department of Education that they've just come out with guidance so that we can start to form our um policies around that issue there's nothing Earth shattering in the guidance no there isn't but what I found really interesting about the webinar was this idea that so our policies are inspir aspirational and then it's our our staff who's going to be setting regulations and the interesting part is you can't make regulations and call kids into the principal's office every time do you expel them from school what are the consequences when when you find kids breaking the rules so we need to be really careful and we need to move forward pretty carefully um with not just creating the policy but then the regulations that we're going to to go by and um and for that
070reason and I think it was really important that we started this these book groups and and started getting the community not just School Personnel but the the community um to read these book groups um because we bottom line is we need everybody on board if we're gonna make this happen it can't just be otherwise you're leaving teachers out there teachers in one class saying what their rule is for cell phone use in their class and another teacher has a different it it doesn't work it there needs to be policy that can that we can apply across all the whole school and um and it needs to be workable and it needs to be enforceable so um it was interesting to listen to it and it's a big job but um I'm happy to take that
071on as a member of the policy committee so it's important work yeah thanks for attending that and thanks for participating in the club any other Mr gripple thank you um just to sort of piggyback on what everyone else has said U certainly uh since uh Tim and I attended that parent meeting what was that in July I guess yeah end of read the meeting and uh or read the book um the one thing that I said uh to the we only had maybe five parents in that one but uh what I said to them and what I say to all the parents now is that you know if we're going to to be able to affect change in mental health uh you know that this book um contends you know is backed by the you
072know the data that that's in there um is that you know we have a you know an understood culture of uh culture of Excellence as far as academics goes and that is um you know helped Along by the parents right the parents make sure that the the their children are doing the work and help them EX Excel and uh and be successful in our school system and that shows and in their grades and the test scores that we get and in the same way if we can make as many rules as we want and we can have kids lock up their phones in school but the moment they leave you know that's where you're really concerned sure it's a distraction in school you don't want to texting or you know whatever happens during the day
073but it's it's really what happens after they leave school um and that's where that culture comes in about you know we We Begin uh I think you know through the elementary school in Middle School um and then and and the one thing that even the State Board of Ed leaves off they don't they don't touch the 10- foot pole is high school right and uh that's the the real real concern is is high school where you know our our children are becoming more independent and then they have access to literally a a a psychologic IAL drug that bends their how they their perception of the world in a way that is now demonstrous Dem monstrously being proven that it's not very good for them you know like you know Tim and I Mark right we
074remember in high school just without social media how tough and we all remember how tough it could be without being put on blast in front of a thousand or 2,000 people and and just like just word of mouth but now you would have the the electronic equivalent of essentially being destroyed in 30 seconds uh I can't even imagine the pressure of of that uh in high school or heck even College really um so you know I think um it's we as a PO as a policy subcommittee will certainly Mark so chooses I guess right as chairman um uh that we take up this issue that we we come up with really sound uh really sound famework framework in conjunction with the administ ation so you guys can make uh you know great uh Administration decisions
075on that but but it's also up to the parents to follow along and to uh to be engaged in something like that because I told the group that that I was in front of was like we might make rules that you're not going to like um and but we we need to hear from you to to know what's what's workable what's real um before we we make anything official um so that's all I have to say on that uh secondly on the North End project um so I you know I live near there um and I see the fences going up and I don't know Vin if if you could if you could tell me is the footprint of the school inside of that fence because it seems small even you because I drive by
076it maybe it's not that small but you know I haven't seen where the fence is going up yeah but the footprint there's a pretty large flat area that you could see so that is where the school was going I don't know is it is that's where the footprint is going to be it's inside that fence perimeter like all the trees around that perimeter those are all staying and the school is inside that perimeter so again I don't know where the fence perimeter is when last I was there which was over the weekend you could see that there's a a big flat area yeah that's where the school's going to be I know again that seemed small even though it's like far away I know CU like now even compare it to like Highland or or
077to Norton it it seems I you know doesn't seem that far away from the road but I know felt like yeah the whole kids and have all the grounds I don't know the only trees really that are being cleared are the ones that are at that house yeah because that will serve as the construction it's not a trailer it's going to be the Construction office house until the Project's complete then that house will get torn down so yeah sure things get real once you know everything you know because I'm they're starting to St what is it Tamp down the or whatever they're doing over there but you know I guess it be interesting is comes along I think Dr Solen shared some of the Drone pictures I know they're available on the website but if
078you look at the Drone you kind of get a sense of where the building's going to be day by day we drive by so you know it's great you seen the plans you know no I know that it fits I just like when you see it for real it's like gee I thought it would be a lot bigger I don't know but maybe it will be and it'll be great and I'm sure it work school buildings you know committees downstairs if you want bigger go see them I'm sure when you get the height involved it'll be oh yeah it'll be plenty big oh Tim you want to go yeah thank you um yeah so just what one last one last point on the anxious on the aous Generation Um for parents who are uh if
079you have kids who are going through puberty right now particularly girls was the focus of this book just to point out that it wasn't just an addiction that the author was talking about but he was saying how brains he's a psychologist I'm not not a scientist but basically brains are developing differently because of the social media and and for that reason I again encourage people to read it because it's something that could be affecting people today that's it thank you I I just wanted to add Jeff my thanks and um compliment you on the time and effort that you put into this whole project around the book and I have to add that after I read that section on playgrounds I was in a meeting the next day on working on a playground preschool it's
080a prek-2 building and I just had a totally different idea you know about and and we were getting that you know the red blue yellow green plastic kind of you know playground with the soft and I'm thinking oh we need tires we need um you know hammers we need and um I mean they all looked at me like I was crazy but you know um I gave them your number so but anyways I do want to thank you because I think it was um very useful information for me for our parents for our community for the board of EDS so thank you I really appreciate reading it and participating like I said that education reading that book changes your view of things and I'm glad that we did read it because when we look at
081our playscapes and the new schools we have a different perspective so thank you guys for participating and supporting that process thank you Dr Solen um I I have to basically didd to what Amry said I I always feel as though you know you are very Innovative because we're always H trying things to to apply preventive maintenance in educating the public and um I love the strategy I I think it appears that obviously it's very popular because I haven't heard from Tim in so long um so if you can just do another series of book that's what I mean and I've read the book so I don't want to give it away either but it was very impactful um so a lot to talk about a lot to think about um Adam and I have had
082conversations it wasn't an illegal meeting we just had conversations about you know what to discuss in policy and so forth so we have a lot of work to do um but thank you and then just in just the fact that we again put practices in place uh you know one being the purposeful play just to kind of counter those things that you know we've all it's the elephant in the room so um so I want to extend my appreciation to miss wano as well too next I item is um old business if any board members have any old business no awesome um and then the last item would be uh the chair's report um I'm just going to actually just read that there are some upcoming meetings and voila the first meeting would be the
083policy committee which is Monday September 3rd um postpone that oh yes we did we're in October those would be our first policy okay did we pick an October date though yes U Carol is October 2nd 9th oh okay okay first because it's it's typically on that Monday but because of Labor Day oh that's right we had to move and uh we're on the 7th yeah so October 7th is policy at seven location to be determined or we're going to be at the board of bed hummus Street humus School Board ofed office Board of Ed office September 5th would be our Board of Ed opening of school meeting here at Town council chambers um and September 9th Monday September 9th will be curriculum committee meeting at 7 pm central office boardroom and then September 19th would
084be our Board of Ed business meeting as well um I do offline want to um ask to consider putting in the um personnel meeting as soon as possible um somewhere here if we can discuss that after this um some school and community events and activities August 26 convocation woohoo August 29th first day of school for all students September 2nd is Labor Day break and then October 3rd rashash Shana October 14th indigenous people's day/ Italian American day um schools and central office will be closed and then we have November 28th to 29th will be our Thanksgiving break which schools and central office will be closed as well too um and that's it for upcoming meetings and events um I just want to say congratulations again to Miss Taylor um and I I'm going to rephrase you
085are the Brando she's the colon how about that right no pressure no pressure so um so welcome board I'd like to wish everybody a Happy New school year I love the beginning of the school year I thrive off of it by naturally being an educator myself um and I'm looking forward I think the rain is a good sign rain is always luck I mean Monsoon rain I don't know but I think this is going to be a great year um I am dropping my last child off tomorrow at Penn State um so please don't call me I'm going to be a hot mess um but I do again want to thank chesher public schools because you've helped to create wonderful children in my view um and you've helped them to grow so and I know
086that we will continue to provide that Excellence so thank you Dr Solen and team and that's it for me so I would like to call for a motion to adjourn Mr Aki second all in favor to adjourn it is unanimous we are adjourned at 8:52 thank you have a good evening thank you